A “Mah-Kinder” geopolitical explanation of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

Abstract

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has garnered a lot of attention, and worries about its impact and influence over Eurasia and Indo-Pacific. Two classical geopoliticians – Halford J. Mackinder and Alfred Thayer Mahan – had provided useful frameworks to explain China’s BRI geopolitical implications, and geostrategies to dominate the Eurasian continent and Indo-Pacific waterways with economic tools and infrastructure projects. This article claims that China’s BRI is a testament of the exceptional explanatory power of classical geopolitical theories in the practice of grand strategy in international politics.

Acknowledgements

The author expresses his gratitude to the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education for a generous Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS/1/2020/SSO/UPNM/02/1), which enabled the author to conduct his research.

Notes

1 Bradley A. Thayer Lianchao Han, “China’s Coronavirus Plan: Create a ‘Silk Road’ of Health Care Leading Towards World Dominance,” The National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/china%E2%80%99s-coronavirus-plan-create-%E2%80%98silk-road%E2%80%99-health-care-leading-towards-world-dominance (accessed March 19, 2020).

2 Patrick Mendis and Dominique Reichenbach. “The Cost of Donald Trump’s Kowtow to China’s Xi Jinping,” The National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/cost-donald-trump%E2%80%99s-kowtow-china%E2%80%99s-xi-jinping-163562 (accessed June 27, 2020).

3 Federico Pieraccini, “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: The $10 trillion investment plan to integrate the Eurasian continent,” Global Research, https://www.globalresearch.ca/chinas-belt-and-road-the-10-trillion-investment-plan-to-integrate-the-eurasian-supercontinent/5622053 (accessed December 8, 2017).

4 See, “Will China’s Belt and Road Initiative outdo the Marshall Plan?”, The Economist, https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/03/08/will-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-outdo-the-marshall-plan (accessed March 8, 2018).

5 Mark Green, “China’s Debt Diplomacy,” Foreign Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/25/chinas-debt-diplomacy/ (accessed April 25, 2019).

6 Roie Yellinik, “The Second Belt and Road Summit,” Perspective Papers (The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies), https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/belt-and-road-summit/ (accessed May 13, 2019).

7 Colin S. Gray and Geoffrey Sloan, eds., Geopolitics: Geography and Strategy (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 15.

8 Halford J. Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” Geographical Journal, 1904, chapter in edited by Simon Dalby, Paul Routledge, & Gearóid Ó Tuathail, The Geopolitics Reader (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 34–38.

9 See Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction [1919] (Suffolk: Penguin, 1944).

10 Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 86.

11 Ibid., 194.

12 Halford J. Mackinder, “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace,” Foreign Affairs 21, no. 4 (1943): 604.

13 P.K. Ghoah, “Artificial Islands in the South China Sea,” Diplomat, https://thediplomat.com/2014/09/artificial-islands-in-the-south-china-sea/ (accessed September 23, 2014).

14 Martin van Creveld, The Art of War: War and Military Thought (New York: Smithsonian, 2005), 144.

15 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Seapower upon History, 1660–1783 (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1890; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1987).

16 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1897; reprint Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1970).

17 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Problem of Asia (New York: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1900; reprint, Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1970).

18 Mahan, The Interest of America, 198. See also Barry M. Gough, “Maritime Strategy: The Legacies of Mahan and Corbett as Philosophers of Sea Power,” RUSI Journal (Winter, 1988), 56.

19 See Milan Vego, Maritime Strategy and Sea Control: Theory and Practice (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).

20 Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power, 8.

21 See James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century: The turn to Mahan (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008); and James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, Red Star Over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010).

22 Harry G. Gelber, The Dragon and the Foreign Devils: China and the World, 1100 BC to the present (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), 88–89.

23 Geoffrey Wade, “The Zheng He Voyages: A Reassessment, ARI Working Paper, No. 31,” October 2004, www.ari.nus.edu.sg/pub/wps.htm, 12.

24 Ibid., 13–18.

25 The ECRL project has its fair share of controversies. See Adam Leong Kok Wey, “Foreign policy concerns swayed Malaysia’s voters,” East Asia Forum, https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2018/07/28/foreign-policy-concerns-swayed-malaysias-voters/ (accessed July 28, 2018).

26 See, “China plans to have five aircraft carriers,” India Times, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/china-plans-to-have-five-aircraft-carriers-in-future-chinese-experts/articleshow/66966130.cms (accessed December 6, 2018). See also Ying Yu Lin, “How Will the Chinese Navy Use Its 2 Aircraft Carriers?”, Diplomat, https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/how-will-the-chinese-navy-use-its-2-aircraft-carriers/ (accessed January 10, 2020).

27 It must be noted also, that China, by building a chain of maritime outposts and securing sea lanes of communication from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean via the BRI, plausibly aims to isolate Taiwan’s maritime lines of communications. China’s use of economic aid diplomacy and BRI infrastructure projects (building and financing) to cut off the last few states that recognize Taiwan had also garnered some successes with Burkina Faso, Panama, and the Solomon Islands the latest states that had terminated official diplomatic recognition of Taiwan (there are only 16 states that still recognize Taiwan today). If China’s various strategies to rein in Taiwan gain traction, Taiwan may be isolated and faces dire strategic consequences with limited choices to react. See Adam Leong Kok Wey, “China, Taiwan and the South China Sea,” CDISS Commentary, http://cdisscommentary.upnm.edu.my/index.php/84-cdiss/366-china-taiwan-and-the-south-china-sea (accessed June 10, 2020).

28 See Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris, War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft (London: Belknap, 2016).

29 See Umesh Moramudali, “Is Sri Lanka Really a Victim of China’s ‘Debt Trap’?”, Diplomat, https://thediplomat.com/2019/05/is-sri-lanka-really-a-victim-of-chinas-debt-trap/ (accessed May 14, 2019).

30 See Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Problem of Asia and its Effects upon International Politics (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1900).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adam Leong Kok Wey

Adam Leong Kok Wey ([email protected]) is an professor in strategic studies at the National Defence University of Malaysia. He holds a PhD in Strategic Studies from the University of Reading and his most recent book is Killing the Enemy! Assassination operations during World War II (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).